Heads up - webchat with Jeremy Corbyn Monday 19th Sept @ 2pm.

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello,

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with the leader of the Labour Party (and candidate in the current leadership election) Jeremy Corbyn MP on Monday 19 September at 2pm.

Jeremy has been MP for Islington North since 1983, and before 2015 was best known as a rebellious backbencher and chair of the Stop the War coalition. His leadership of Labour over the past year has inspired enthusiastic support as well as attracting sustained criticism. Among other things, he’s taken a new crowd-sourced approach to Prime Minister’s Questions, opposed military intervention in Syria and proposed the renationalisation of the railways.

His last webchat on Mumsnet (alongside fellow leadership candidate in 2015, Liz Kendall) featured lively discussions about socialism, electability and the provenance of Jeremy’s vests (Holloway Road market, since you ask).

Please do join the chat on Monday at 2, or if you can’t make it, leave a question here in advance. If you know people who you think would like to ask Jeremy a question, do please share the link around on social media too.

(If you’re interested in our webchat with the other Labour leadership candidate Owen Smith, take a look here .)

As always, please do keep in mind our webchat guidelines - one question each, follow-ups if there’s time and above all, keep it civil [taps nose like that geezer Shaw Taylor in Police 5] (Horribly showing my age there).

I second Voles question and would also like to include the abuse that female MPs are currently getting.

Hi Jeremy,
I'm glad we're getting a web chat from you as we had Mr smith previously. (He was notable for answering questions from one type of voter only).

I am a teacher and I am terrified about the future of this country, our children and my fellow professionals. I'm sure I don't need to go into the lack of funding, morale and common sense causing these problems.
When you are re-elected Labour leader and leader of the opposition I know you will keep the present government in check. However, can you assure me that your future government policy will be led and informed by educational professionals rather than people whose entire qualification for leading education is 'I went to school'.
Thanks for spending time answering our questions.

I third Vole and Pigletwas's questions.

hoddtastic - make jam for Jeremy? How did the recipe start? 'First take one half-empty train ...'

Fourth the abuse questions, especially as Paul Mason has publicly denied the abuse of MPs. Anyone who has been on Owen Smith's facebook page over the last few days will have seen the vile abuse and threats that he has received from self-professed Corbyn supporters. Many of these posts have been deleted, but not all.

It seems hugely hypocritical to me, Jeremy, that supporters of yours are advocating deselection for MPs who disagree with or criticise you, when you yourself spent years doing exactly this to previous legitimately elected leaders of the Labour party. How can you justify deselection given your own previous behaviour as a party member? And if you can't, why aren't you speaking out against it?

Jeremy, the level of abuse your female mps in particular are receiving is notable and clear. You have said "not in your name" repeatedly. Is that enough and why are you not addressing this with action not words? If my boss suggested I should just ignore being howled at constantly and told that he too has been abused, I would be bloody furious at the lack of awareness or care this shows.
I recently had an innocuous one tweet conversation with jess phillips mp, for example about a non leadership point. My timeline was filled immediately and for the next week with streams of sarcastic retorts about the leadership contest retweeted continuously - many were misogynistic and insulting towards jess. All because she has the temerity to not believe you are a good leader. Surely this deserves more than a "ignore it" passive comment?

WHY do you refuse to condemn the Ira i listened to your interview with Stephen Nolan and it concerns me that we may end up one day having a prime minister who is quick to condemn the army who's country he leads but refuses to condemn terroists who have brutally murdered many innocent people.

Hi Jeremy, I joined the Labour Party this year due to your leadership, I have paid up so I could vote for you. Thank you for your continued strength at what must be a terribly difficult time.

Good luck, we are behind you.

My question is: How do you cope with all the horrendous comments, accusations and scrutiny that your every move illicits? Is there any one thing you do as a stress buster?

Why should Labour MP's follow your lead, when as a backbencher, you didn't follow the leader?

Will you allow Labour MP's to elect the shadow cabinet?

Hi .Will you commit to keeping women as a biological sex class and protecting private female spaces for women of that biological sex class? Thanks.

No question of my own at this point but I would like answers to the questions already put forward on the commercialisation of women's bodies and the replacement of sex segregated spaces with gender identity segregated spaces.

I would quite like answers on education but 'we will build council houses and provide a high quality education for all' is a little bit more palatable to todays brociallists than the protection of woman as a biological sex class.

Hi Jeremy

Why is it that the current welfare system seems to throw money at the work shy and we see story after story about those that manage to abuse the system, and yet there is no help for working mothers who are expected to pay over £1000 a month in nursery fees until their children turn three?!

And if your party gets into power do you aim to do anything to help?

My partner and I both have decent public sector jobs paying well above the NMW. My partner works FT (often 6 day weeks) and I'm PT (3 days a week).
We have 3 young kids but rent a 2 bed house because we live in a high rent area and rely on Housing Benefit to make ends meet.
We can't afford anything bigger because the Local Housing Allowance is well below the market rent in this area.
We're on the council waiting list but there just aren't enough places available. We can't possibly save enough for a deposit to buy.
It's very stressful.
What would you do to help people like us?

Jeremy I saw you speak in ramsgate and I am pleased to see real passion back in politics and have someone who I believe in as leader of my party.

I wonder why some stalwarts of the party refuse to see what us minions can.... And the longer they dig their heels in and not back you the more the ground swell will.

Please don't be beaten by bullies and give in....
You speak for so many of us....

Hi Jeremy.

How are you going to appeal to the middle ground of the electorate, so that they vote Labour instead of Lib-Dem or Tory?

I believe that the Labour Party needs to appeal to a broad church, in order to be able to beat the Conservatives and form a government. My fear is that, whilst you are beloved by your supporters, and are a greatly principled politician with laudable aims, all this counts for nothing if you are in opposition - and you need to appeal not just to the people who love you already, but ALSO to those voters who fear you are too far to the left.

Will you actively support electoral reform, and progressive alliances with other parties aimed at achieving electoral reform? It is hard to imagine tackling the democratic deficit in our society without addressing our broken electoral system.

As an aside, I wonder what MostlyHet means about interfering at constituency level to secure deselections. I've not heard any evidence that Corbyn is doing any such thing. On the contrary he has credibly spoken about the need to reassert local party democracy.

Your women only train carriages and disallowing drinks after works ideas sound unhelpful and a bit ridiculous.

How do.you intend help women who are trying to progress or maintain their career whilst being crippled by childcare costs?

How are you supporting women in your own party? Especially those targeted by online abuse?

We are now in nation divided with reports of racist attacks mist days. After your lacklustre Brexit campaign, and a 'preaching to the converted' leadership style, how do you intend to bring the country back together?

PS. I am a Labour supporter

The Greens call us 'NonMen'

Libdems are not denouncing the idea that we should be given information about sex work on leaving school.

The Tories are destroying the safety net of the welfare system and taking money from refuges

The Wep can't define women.

And you 'don't want to criminalise people' so want to legalise the purchasing of women's bodies. If it was mostly men being raped and abused and women buying would you still feel that way? Why can't you decriminalise women and punish the men who have sex with women and know they can't know if they are being trafficked. Women don't die with the Nordic model. You know that. You don't care

Who the fuck can I vote for now?

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2929695/Girls-sleep-20-men-NIGHT-men-say-sex-service-seedy-world-Germany-s-biggest-brothel-revealed-s-totally-legal.html

What would a Labour government do to reform the system of Education, Health and Care Plans for children with special educational needs? My local authority illegally turned my daughter down for an assessment, despite saying in a letter that they accepted she had special educational needs. Luckily I was armed with legal information and was successful when we went to mediation. But many families have to fight at the SEN tribunal. It seems the system is deliberately set up to turn families down in the hope that many of us will either give us from stress or not understand the appeal process. It sets us up to fail from the very beginning.

My friends in Islington North say, and I quote, that you 'work like a demon' for your constituents. They have nothing but praise for you. Which is why I finally joined the Labour Party last year and voted for you as leader.

This is a question about the proposals to democratise the Labour Party that are signalled in today's Guardian article. For example, the suggestion of allowing the membership of the party to elect the shadow cabinet (www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/17/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-members-choose-shadow-team):

In an system of digital consultation, where the party leadership directly consults with individual members, what is the proper role of local party branches and their democratic structures? Do they risk being displaced and what would be the consequences of their displacement?

Digital democracy, with its potentially unmediated relationship between individuals and the centre, can seem like a perfection of mass empowerment. But unless we reinvigorate the structures that allow individuals to come together locally to shape their reaction to centrally determined agendas, how powerful is the grassroots of the movement, really?

At worst, there wouldn't even be a grassroots movement, just a bunch of individuals who have paid a fee to press a button, and who would vote in solitude based on their consumption of news media.

Don't we need to work harder at shaping party democracy around local party meetings (and local party online forums and voting structures) so that individual members can form their stances in communication and solidarity with the people they live and work alongside?

Perhaps all this is already a part of the thinking around party reform. I hope so.

Do you regret any element of how you handled the verbal attack on Ruth Smeeth at the launch of the Chakrabarti report? Were you at all at fault for not calling it out immediately and then for buddying up with the man who shouted at her, or was it just a regrettable incident no one could have helped?

Hello Jeremy

This week, Dennis Parsons, the Chairman of Cheltenham Liberal Democrats, proposed that school careers officers should be able to promote prostitution to school leavers as a career choice.
inews.co.uk/essentials/news/politics/lib-dem-shouldnt-careers-officers-suggest-prostitution-school-leavers/
He is in favour of full decriminalisation of the sex trade, just like you!

My question is this:
Jeremy, are you also in favour of presenting children with the career opportunity of prostitution and presumably pimping too? (They would probably need example job descriptions, typical tasks, career progression and key performance indicators to properly evaluate their career choice options.)

If sex work and those who profit from the prostitution of women - pimps, traffickers and the like - are to be as valid as any other career by legalising all aspects, then shouldn't we as a society have the courage of our convictions and begin by presenting the next generation with this brilliant and profitable life choice?

Or have you perhaps carefully reconsidered your stance since March and now see the benefits to exploited women and girls of adopting the Nordic Model?